Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Wednesday brings us a fully packed, 15-game MLB betting slate. It’s going to feel a little bit like the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament with virtually every team playing and games constantly on, starting from 1:05 p.m. ET in Dunedin until 10:10 p.m. ET in Los Angeles. We’ll take a deeper look into Wednesday’s best MLB bets below.
Seattle Mariners @ Baltimore Orioles
Happy Harvey Day! Maybe not the most star-studded matchup out there, but we find value wherever we can. Game 3 of the four-game series will feature a pair of righties, with Seattle starting Justin Dunn and Baltimore countering with Matt Harvey.
Last year as a club, Seattle finished with subpar numbers on the road and against right-handers. While not necessarily a bottom-five team, they were consistently ranked around 17th-22nd. They finished the season with a .310 wOBA (21st) and 99 wRC+ (17th) against righties and posted a .305 wOBA (19th) and 92 wRC+ (18th) on the road. This year, however, Seattle as really seemed to turn it around offensively, especially taking into account their road/RHP splits. The season is early so the sample sizes are still fairly small, but Seattle is currently sixth in the league in wOBA (.328) and wRC+ (112) against right-handers, a 13% increase in offensive prowess. Through 117 team plate appearances on the road, they have top-10 numbers in both wOBA (.330) and wRC+ (111), giving them almost a 20% increase in offensive output on the road compared to last season. They have top-10 marks in OBP (.320), SLG (.430), OPS (.750) and ISO (.175) against righties as well and have already scored 4 and 6 runs against Baltimore in the first two games of the series (both seven-inning games). Needless to say, Seattle is seeing the ball well to start the season.
For as bad as Harvey as been over the past four seasons, his first two starts have gone better than the numbers may suggest. He has a 5.59 ERA on the season, but his FIP and xFIP are much lower at 3.25 and 3.90. He’s retooled his arsenal slightly, adding a sinker that he debuted in his 11 innings with Kansas City in 2020, throwing it 41% of the time last year and 22% so far this season. This is particularly of note because prior to the last two seasons, he hadn’t thrown his sinker more than 4.6% of the time in any season of his in the big leagues, while registering zero sinkers in 2013, 2015 and 2017 completely. This new weapon could have a little do with the slight success Harvey has found so far in 2021, but the past five seasons are a much bigger sample size and a clearer picture of an individual’s performance. Since 2017, Harvey has registered a 6.07 ERA, 5.53 FIP, 3.3 BB/9, 19% HR/FB and almost 2 HR/9, a far cry from the pitcher we saw at the beginning of his career. He has increased his ground ball rate significantly from recent seasons, while also lowering his HR/FB ratio to better than league average, so there is some hope that his sinker has added new life to his career, but I’m going to side with the larger sample size.
The bad news for Baltimore is that they have one of the worst bullpens in the league to relieve Harvey if/when he gets into trouble. They have the seventh-highest bullpen FIP in the majors so far this year, the fifth-most HR/9 allowed, a top-10 hard-hit rate against, and a bottom-10 O-Swing% (out-of-zone swing) combined with a top-10 Z-Contact% (in-zone contact). They have the fourth-lowest K/9, allow a mediocre 3.9 BB/9, and will be on very short rest after just pitching 7 innings in Tuesday’s doubleheader. When Baltimore’s bullpen throws strikes, they’ve been getting hit hard and often.
The pick
The Mariners have scored 86% of their runs against right-handed pitchers and have averaged just over 4.5 (4.56) runs per game to start the season, while Baltimore has allowed opponents to score 5.44 runs per game. A notoriously bad starter over the last few seasons and a worse, unrested bullpen facing a lineup who has been seeing righties well is a recipe for runs. Camden Yards is the 11th-best run-scoring environment in the league and the wind should be blowing out to left-center between 5-10 mph. Seattle TT o4.5 +100.
Miami Marlins @ Atlanta Braves
Miami has taken the first two games of this four-game series against Atlanta. The Marlins will try to continue their success with Nick Neidert taking the mound for them, while Charlie Morton tries to salvage Game 3 for Atlanta.
Atlanta hasn’t gotten off to the start many would have expected, going 4-7 through their first 11 games. While the Braves’ numbers at home are still among the league’s best with a .354 WOBA and 117 wRC+, they actually have a bottom-10 .283 wOBA and 78 wRC+ against righties compared to their league-leading .363 wOBA and 126 wRC+ they posted last season. Those splits definitely look scary on the surface, but some positive regression could be coming their way if we dig a little deeper into their stats. Even with their bottom-10 wOBA and wRC+ against right-handers, they’ve managed the fourth-highest hard-hit rate while posting the league’s second-lowest BABIP’s of .241. A BABIP that low is definitely the result of some bad luck, so if some of Atlanta’s hard-hit balls start finding gaps then they could see their 3.9 runs per game (already up to 6 runs per game since their opening series in Philadelphia) start to climb.
Neidert’s first start of the season was fairly successful from a results perspective, going 4.1 innings, allowing only 3 hits and 1 earned run while striking out 3. What that stat line doesn’t show you is the five walks, meaning he allowed 8 baserunners in 4.1 innings and got lucky to escape with only the 1 earned run allowed. He’s only thrown 13 innings in the majors, posting a 4.26 ERA and 4.76 FIP during that span, but projection systems have him closer to 5.00 for both of those figures with BB/9 as high as 4.3 for the season. His main pitches are four-seamer that he throws 58% of the time, change-up 18%, slider 16%, and curveball 8%. Being able to mix it up with 4 different pitches and keep hitters off balance is usually a benefit, but Neidert’s arsenal is exactly what Atlanta feasts off of. Atlanta is surprisingly the worst team in the league against four-seamers this year, but I’m going to attribute that to their previously mentioned bad luck, as they were the best team in 2020 against four-seamers. As far as Neidert’s other three pitches, Atlanta ranks top-five in the league against all of them. If Atlanta can regain their top-10 BB% numbers and let Neidert do most of the work for them, there could be a lot of RISP situations for Atlanta Wednesday.
Following Neidert, should he not be able to complete another tightrope walk as he did in his first start, is Miami’s bottom-of-the-league bullpen. They have the league’s second-highest FIP at 5.57 and their ERA- and FIP- numbers suggest that they’re about 43% worse than the average MLB bullpen. They allow a top-5 contact rate, don’t strike out batters, are bottom-10 in both hard-hit rate and line drive rate, and let up the league’s second-most HR/9. All of this while having the seventh-lowest BABIP, suggesting that, if anything, this bullpen has been lucky to not have been playing worse.
The pick
I’m rolling with another team total over in this one. Atlanta’s lineup is too good to not break out eventually, especially when their underlying statistics seem to be positive. For Neidert, getting through the New York Mets’ lineup is one thing, but to go only 4 innings with a WHIP of 1.846 against a lineup with the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Freddie Freeman is a completely different beast. Truist Park has been the seventh-highest run scoring environment in the majors and the wind here should be blowing out 10 mph toward left/left-center. Atlanta TT o4.5 -110.
